Canberra, Australia - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday he had asked President Donald Trump in a phone call for an exemption to tariffs slapped on his country last month.
"The ask that I made of the president is that he consider full exemption, or at the very least, no increase," Albanese said during a statement to the press on Friday.
Australia was slapped with a levy of 12.5% last month over alleged forced labor concerns, along with 59 other countries.
In what he described as a "warm and productive" conversation, the US president agreed to consider exempting Australia from that tariff, Albanese said.
"I did ask that Australia's position as a friend of the United States be considered, and the president agreed that he would give consideration to my request."
"We have a different position when it comes to tariffs," Albanese added. "Our position as a government is that tariffs are an economic imposition, a cost on the countries that are imposing them, and we support free and fair trade."
The two leaders also discussed progress in AUKUS, under which Australia is expected to receive at least three so-called "Virginia-class" nuclear-powered submarines from the US within 15 years.
Albanese said he had raised the war in the Middle East and reiterated Australia's view that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
"I expressed our view that we wanted to see an end to the conflict there," he said.